Bring the wrong envelope to the wrong event in Korea, and it’s not a small mistake. A condolence envelope at a wedding, or a celebration envelope at a funeral, reads as a genuine error rather than an innocent mix-up. Korean wedding and funeral money etiquette runs on a specific set of rules — the envelope, … Read more
Give a Korean friend a gift wrapped in white paper and you may get a puzzled look before a “thank you.” Give them exactly four of anything and the pause gets longer. Korean gift giving etiquette runs on a handful of specific, learnable rules — and almost none of them are written down anywhere a … Read more
Watch a Korean hand something to someone older and you will notice it: both hands on the object, or one hand giving while the other touches the giving arm. It happens with glasses, money, business cards, documents, phones, anything. Foreign visitors usually learn this as a rule to imitate. It is worth understanding why Koreans … Read more